Dry fire practice involves manipulating and using the weapon without loading it. The technique is often used to simulate actual firing of the firearm when there is not a suitable place to practice with live ammunition. The user may handle, aim, pull the trigger, pull the slide and/or cock the firearm during such practice. Dry fire exercises are a versatile and safe way to practice with firearms and improve one's shooting skills. Historically safety or “dummy” rounds have been used to simulate proper loading, reloading, and quick trigger engagement after reloading. However it is laborious and time consuming to load the practice magazine and then have to retrieve the ejected safety rounds from the ground. Most pistols use magazines featuring a spring loaded follower. When the magazine is emptied, the follower engages a slide lock which prevents travel of the slide until a new, loaded magazine is inserted. While this functionality is useful for quickly reloading the firearm during live firing, it hampers practicing with the firearm because the operator must disengage the slide lock after insertion of a fresh magazine. If that magazine is empty the spring loaded follower prevents the disengagement of the slide stop. As mentioned above the historic use of safety rounds is problematic.
Some pistols, such as the Smith & Wesson M&P9c pistol (available from Smith & Wesson Corp. of Springfield, Mass.), contain a magazine safety. Such pistols cannot function without a magazine, preventing the most basic practice of cycling the slide to cock the firearm and then pulling the trigger. Using an empty magazine automatically locks the slide back with each cycle, which hinders the drill. Thus use of safety rounds is very inefficient.
Devices are known which facilitate using a firearm to practice.
U.S. Pat. No. 119,357, issued to A. C. Hobbs on Sep. 26, 1871, discloses a black cartridge containing no gun powered. The cartridge includes a rubber disk positioned at the rear of the cartridge casing. During dry fire practice, the Hobbs blank is chambered and the disk absorbs blows from the firing pin, allowing the user to simulate some firing actions.
Improvements on the Hobbs blank are known, such as the firearm snap cap disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,090 issued to J. E. Darrow on Jul. 25, 1995. The snap cap is also designed to be chambered and consists of a bore cleaning brush attached to a unit body having a diameter equal to the diameter of ammunition used with the firearm.
While the Hobbs blank, the Darrow snap cap, and other types of chamber-able simulated ammunition may be used during dry fire practice, such practice ammunition may be expelled prematurely if the firearm's round ejection mechanisms are simulated (e.g., pulling a pistol slide back when a practice round is in the chamber). Thus, practicing actuating the firearm slide, reloading the firearm magazine, and other techniques may be difficult and/or require multiple rounds of practice ammunition.
Other safety devices are known, such as the magazine block device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,240,449 issued to N. E. Clifton on Jul. 10, 2007. The Clifton magazine block is designed to be inserted into a magazine and, when the magazine is loaded into a rifle, the magazine block occupies the loading chamber, thereby preventing live rounds of ammunition from being loaded while still allowing the user to practice with the rifle. Some designs of the Clifton magazine block impede full motion of the firearm slide and/or charging handle.
Given the foregoing, what are needed are devices which allow a user to conduct dry fire practice drills with a firearm, including magazine removal are reload exercises.